Finding it hard to focus these days? Here are 3 tips to stay productive

Trying to accomplish anything recently has felt like slogging through a river of kids’ play slime and then trying to wipe it off. If you have ever made or been given play slime (which was absolutely manufactured by the devil himself) you know the joys of this experience. 

There is no question that the pandemic has affected our mental health. It’s not just fear of contracting the virus, which quite frankly has been bad enough. It’s also added stressors that come with disruption to all the daily routines we’ve built and relied on. Schools, jobs, grocery stores, and visits with friends all changed suddenly and drastically. Toss in a little extra anxiety from the news cycle and it is an excellent formula to crush your productivity. And maybe a little bit of your dreams. 

Lots of people are feeling more anxious since the pandemic

If you’re feeling this way, you are not alone. Mental Health America released data they gathered from February to August through their online screening services, and found that almost 390,000 people screened moderate to severe for depression or anxiety; a much higher number than would have been expected during the same pre-pandemic time period. 

I took the test this morning and, not surprisingly, got a 19 out of 21 on the anxiety scale. Feels about right. If you get the same result as me, and you are not seeing a therapist these days, I strongly recommend it. Like, five-stars review for therapy. It’s definitely worth your time and money.

How to be more productive

We still have to figure out a way to get stuff done in the midst of all the slime-slogging. So, in true blogger fashion, I have created this handy list of ways to stay productive. I find them helpful, but full disclosure, I have also checked TikTok at least five times while writing this, so give yourself some grace. No strategy is going to do your work for you, but it will help keep you on track. 

Create a consistent schedule - Seems pretty obvious, but creating a schedule is pivotal to helping push through fog and stay on track. Get more granular that just, daily to-do lists. Those are helpful, but think about your high school class schedule: Your day was planned hour by hour. This is especially helpful if you’re prone to either procrastination or letting one task steal your day, but you must stick to the schedule. Trust the process. 

Create a task-reward system - I highly recommend the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg where he breaks down the formula to create new habits: cue, routine, reward. For example, I want to start doing yoga every morning. I also very much enjoy a cup of tea in the morning. My cue to take action will be putting on the kettle, then I’ll go do some yoga while I wait for the water to heat and the tea to steep. My reward after yoga is enjoying a nice, hot cup of tea on the back porch. You can apply the strategy to just about any activity. 

Find your mind’s prime work time - Observe yourself to find out what time of day your mind is primed for certain tasks. Maybe you think you’re a night owl, but after really paying attention to how you feel throughout the day, you realize that mornings are actually when you get the most done. Listen to your intuition and that very busy brain. Change things up on your schedule to see if your productivity improves just by shifting tasks to fit the time of day your brain likes best. 

I hope that you find some of these helpful, and also that you never have to wipe slime from your hands again.